“He’ll get here when he’s done cleaning up the mess you made,” I answer, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms across my chest.
Her head turns to the side, and her jaw clenches even harder, her body sitting up straight. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Princess.” I lean forward, her words plaguing me. After everything, she still can’t admit that she’s wrong or account for all the lives her family have ruined along the way. “I know about every move you and daddy dearest have been making. Every deal. Every in with another criminal organization, every innocent person who’s lost their life at your hands.” I get up quickly, catching her attention, her chest rapidly rising.
“Look at that wall.” I point to the other end of the room where multiple photos are lined up. Each labeled with a name, date of birth and date of death. In the center, the largest picture, is Blake. “That guy right there was my friend. He was one of the good ones. A guy making his way up from the bottom and he would have been a damn fine cop if it hadn’t been for your family and that shit excuse of a crew you threw together to launder drugs from the hotel.” My hands tighten into fists. It takes everything I have inside me not to launch myself over the table, wrap my hands around her delicate throat, and press her face to each and every picture, so I can force her to see the lives she’s not only ruined, but taken away from their loved ones.
Scarlet’s face stays passive, and if I didn’t know her as well as I do, I would have missed the flash of remorse in those black depths. “I need to talk to Jay,” she tells me again, her voice thick with her accent, another sign that she’s not completely emotionless. Everything must just be buried deep inside the monster she’s become.
My fingers flex at my sides. I don’t want to look at her. It makes my insides turn to be in the same room as her, yet I can’t help but be morbidly interested to know if I could bend her to my will. The clock in the room is ticking down the time I have left alone with her before McCall shows up. My irritation grows knowing he has some deal already worked out with her. “Trent,” her voice is laced with demand and frustration. Must really suck to sit on the wrong side of the table for once.
Scoffing, I turn back toward the board, my eyes connecting to the indigo blue in the picture before me, content to ignore her until she can say something useful. Guilt burrows into my gut the more I stare at it, before anger bubbles to the surface, infusing the two emotions until my lungs squeeze in my chest and red clouds my vision. Blake should not be dead. I should not be here, and it’s all because of Scarlet.
A tap on the door echoes in the room before Jay enters and shuts the door behind him. I feel his gaze land on me briefly. “Reyes,” he says. I can hear the tiredness in voice.
“Did you get her back safely?” I ask, referring to his girlfriend, Blaise Palmer, Blake’s younger sister, and he nods. “At least you did one thing right today.”
Jay sighs and cuts his gaze to mine. His eyes say shut the fuck up, while mine tell him to eat shit. Jay may be my partner per se, but he’s also the reason I can’t have what I want most-- for Scarlet Reyes to pay for everything she’s done. Jay turns back to Scarlet, who immediately relaxes now that he’s here. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but your father did not make it out of surgery.”
“I didn’t expect that he would,” Scarlet replies, the coldness in her voice drawing my attention back to her. Her face is passive, as if the news of the bastard’s death doesn’t bother her, or more like she’s relieved. I scoff; she’s probably relieved he’s out of the way so she can takeover. Too bad for her, I now stand in the way of her ascension to the throne.
“It changes things,” Jay warns her, sitting down across from her at the table.
“I’d say things changed the minute Robocop, here, slapped cuffs on me and I had to walk out of my hotel parking garage for everyone to see,” she reports, her hot gaze landing on me.
I’m about to open my mouth when Jay interrupts, “We have nothing concrete to hold you on. If you don’t wish to make a statement, you’re free to leave, Ms. Reyes.”
“Like Fuck!” I turn to face both of them, the anger I’d been holding onto by a thread finally snapping. “It was a clean arrest and plenty of evidence. Unless you feel like sharing with the rest of the class while you are so willing to let a drug dealing, gun running, criminal walk, then she stays!”
To her credit, Scarlet doesn’t flinch. Jay, however, looks like he’s about to combust. They lock gazes and seem to have an entire conversation with their eyes before Jay is up out of his seat and hauling me out the door.
“Get off, fucker!” I use all my strength to push him back, before landing a blow to his jaw. Gasps sound behind me, and the room freezes.
“Can we not do this here.” Jay steps back, hand cupping his jaw while he moves it side to side.
“You’re going to let her go,” I make the statement. “Where’s your fucking loyalty, man? What about Blake? I finally arrest his killer and you want to let her walk, why? What could be so important that you’re willing to risk her getting away?”
“Again,” his gaze darts around us, “Can we not do this here?” Grabbing my arm, he forces me back into the room.
Scarlet’s head snaps up again, her eyes zoning in on the red mark quickly forming on his cheek. “Jay,” she says, almost as if she’s trying to warn him.
“You can go, Ms. Reyes,” he tells her, moving to unlock the cuffs before tossing them my way. The metal hits my chest and clatters to the ground at my feet. Scarlet doesn’t meet my hostile glare as she darts out of the room, the door closing behind her.
“Nice,” I say, “Blake would be so proud.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Jay turns toward the board, his hands running through his hair. “I shouldn’t even have to be here right now. I have my woman, who’s going through her own trauma, waiting on me, and I have to sit here and listen to you be an asshole who can’t take direction. I told you the score before we even came back to Las Vegas!”
“You didn’t tell me shit!” I yell, my hands flinging out at my sides. “You said they would be here. You said we were making a move, and that the case was moving forward!”
“It is!” Jay hollers back. “If you could take your head out of your ass for two seconds, you’d see the whole picture. We need her to get to the main source. Then we can end them all, and whether you like it or not, we need Scarlet to end this.”
“She needs to pay,” I remind him, only this time, I just don’t mean because of Blake. My whole life, my future went up in flames because of this woman. Being a cop, living an undercover life is what I do to make ends meet. The only job I could get after she set me up to take the fall on a drug raid. I only walked out of the situation alive because Jay had been there. Both times.
Jay sighs, his head tipping back. “Once this is over, you get to decide what happens. You made the arrest. But right now, she’s under my protection, and she’s working both sides while going after the source.”
I want to shake my head in denial. My fingers are already balling into fists and I know they are either going into Jay’s face or the wall if I don’t get out of here. I need air. I need peace, with only the sounds of engines and the crowd to calm the intense rage growing inside of me. I brush past Jay on my way out. I am sick of his shit and fed up with the lies. Everyone lies to gain something around here and secrets and lies...that shit is what gets people killed.